Future Features in Broadcasting

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 44, 18 May 1928, Unnumbered Page

Future Features in Broadcasting

‘to their influence that broadcasting in turn must look for the brains to make it more than ordinarily useful is T HAT the "Highbrows" have definitely contributed to the modern development of the feature film and that it is the theme discussed by a writer "Astyanax" in a recent issue of the "Radio Times."

ree, HAT is a highbrow? Very few people GH Ve & will give the same answer to this quesVAY ef if tion. It depends on the comparative eWak ex height of the brows of the people you Heealeee ask! One man will tell you that the highbrow is a man who snobbishly pretends to appreciate the unintelligible. There are, of course, silly highbrows, much as there are silly people of every brow. Another, rather more sincerely, will answer that the highbrow is a person of genuine good taste, who is not ashamed to say so. On the one hand, I think you will agree that the highbrow is intelligent and appreciativerather beyond the ordinary; on the other, that he is inclined to be self-assertive, intellectually rather priggish and vocal-also beyond the ordinary. His real taste, the subjects of his assertions, will vary. But he will possess both. And, though you will probably dislike him, you will also quite probably admire him -in a slightly furtive way. Now, it may be disturbing, or repulsive; it may be a sign of decadence, or it may not; but the fact remains that the two outstanding artistic products of the present century are the Radio and the Kinematograph. Our present civilisation gave birth to both, The question is whether, in their turn, they will not put an end to this civilisation of ours altogether. A good many people say that they will. They point to wireless and the screen as the outstanding symptoms of an age of vulgarity alike in living and thinking. They assert that the universal is always the third rate, and talk about selection being the basis of all true art. They are, in short, highbrows in their attitude towards modern life. (And there is a certain amount of truth in what they say.) We find, then, that such people tend to cast disparagement on the kinema and the wireless. That is the first great point of contact between these two ew Art-crafts. The second lies in the vital fact that no mere opposition, however much it may be

justified, or however well it may be expressed, has the remotest chance of interfering with their increasing possibilities and, consequently, with their influence. Both have come to stay. But it is rather curious that while the highbrows have now in great numbers gone over to and adopted the kinema, they are showing far greater hesitation to come to terms with wireless in the same way. Not long ago it was almost impossible in this country to see any film which had not come from Hollywood with the trade-mark "for consumption by hicks’? almost printed upon it in letters of flame. People talked with humour, and truth, of films "being made by half-wits for half wits." and so forth. Then some highbrows, who had come to, believe in the screen as a possible art, announced a great discovery. They proclaimed that any film made in Germany, and one or two made by certain favoured Americans, notably Mr. Chaplin, were not vulgar entertainment at all. They were serious works of art, to be treated with reverence, and criticised as carefully as a Beethoven Symphony, a Greco painting, or a novel by Tolstoy. In short, films were made safe for highbrows-and ultimately for intelligent people of all kinds. Now, as I have said, highbrows, though in themselves a small minority of the people in this country, make up about two-thirds of public opinion. They write and talk and move about, whereas most people are obliged by circumstances to remain more or less static, and lack the gift of expression with tongue and pen. The result was that a more critical and intelligent point of view with regard to films swept the country, not only here, but also in America. People began to take the kinema seriously-to go to special films as they go to special plays. German films found a market everywhere, German actors and directors, such as Dupont, Pommer, Leni, Murnau,

Jannings and Veidt, were seized upon by Hollywood, And even the most ordinary films began to be produced under the influence of so-called "highbrow’’ methods and technique. Here comes the point that I wish to make, The highbrows had created a serious interest in a new art. It happened so, because the possibilities of the new art were always there, but could not be developed without the degree of vocal opinion which only the highbrows could supply. "THE highbrow is, so to put it, a John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. He preaches a new thing, which is strange at first, but yet, through its universality, predestined to be taken into the heart of the people, as soon as the people come to realise and understand it. He is just an intelligent person who spots the best a little in advance of his fellows. He spotted Wagner, he spotted Conrad, he spotted Emil Jannings. In time, the highbrow taste becomes the general taste, because the ordinary intelligent man likes the best in every department of art and life. It is this serious interest and belief in the limitless possibilities of a new art which is the preent crying need of Radio. I believe this interest and belief is being created, but too slowly. There is something impersonal about Radio artists and directors, which makes it difficult to achieve. Of course, it is far easier to see than to listen. And a film can be repeated and revived again and again all over the world, on the strength of a minority’s enthusiasm, till it is finally recognised and generally acclaimed as a milestone or a masterpiece. To do the same thing with a new experiment in broadcasting, which occurs only once ephemerally, somewhere in the middle of an average Radio programme, is much harder. The original cannot be repeated indefinitely, since in broadcasting, as opposed to the kinema, practically the same audience listens everywhere every night. -(Continued on p. 3.)

Future Features in Broadcasting

CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE

RAv10 should neglect no opportunity of adopting the suggestions of the "highbrow." We should be inclined to favour rather than to suspect him, for he points the. way to new things---something beyond that halfway to Paradise, which.is peopled with those mild creatures whose ad-} miration is only for the "safe" and *"sound" and "tried" and "accepted" things of life. While the cinema remained constant to the Woollier West, the happy ending, and the. buitter- -- Slide, if remained also an insignificant amusement, of which people were furtively rather cynical, While radio keeps along the well-worn lines. of ordinarily "good" programmes, it will remain an astonishing and occasionally useful toy. The real advantage given to the films by their highbrow sponsors was that of improved technique, which came to be applied to average films of universal and fundamental appeal. On the same lines, radio must be influenced by the minority of its vocal enthusiasts to the continual perfection of its technique. The necessary experiments may lack general appeal, but that can temporarily be disregarded as a necessary evil. And the resulting good will be applied to the immense benefit of programmes,. which in all other respects will keep their universal and fundamental appeal. | Then, as in the case of the cinema, the highbrow will have done his job, and justified his existence. } "Pau foregoing article was followed a little later by one from Walter T, Rault, in which the same theme

was developed and carried a little further. Said Mr. Rault:The twentieth century has seen the birth of many new sciences and of two new arts-radio and the films. Beth the arts are in their nonage; one has founded the greatest enter-' tainment industry in the world, and the other bids fair to challenge it.’ The vastness and complexity of the industries have helped to obscure the immaturity of the arts. The older art-that of the kinema-has just reached the stage of adolescence, and it is passing through all the triumphs and troubles of that stage now. What lessons can be drawn from its experience- to: profit the younger art of radio, which is still learning to walk and trying valiantly to run? In an article in last week’s "Radio Times," "Astyanax" hailed the highbrow as the pioneer who should lead the way to better things, whilst the army of ordinary intelligent people followed after and occupied the ground. floor that he had cleared. It is true that such is the whole tendency of modern art; but the trouble with an art that is already enshrined. in so huge an industry is, how can the highbrow register on it? Materially, broadcasting has leapt to adult stature in five years; the intellectual pioneer has to work on an art some form of svhich is being produced for nation-wide audiences for eleven hours

a day. Its engineers passed out of: the experimental stage before its artists had a chance to realise their problem. But the same thing happened to the kinema. Tow hag it been overcome? The change in the attitude of the intélligent public towards the movies, which "Astyanax" described, is, I believe, only secondarily due to any improvement in the quality of the films. Showmanship and distribution have really effected the change. A few years ago it might be said, with sufficient accuracy, that the better, the more original and unusual a film was, the more obscurely it appeared. Whilst the ordinary commercial kinemas filled their bills twice weekly with a succession of standard products whose differences could barely be discerned, pictures of real importance appeared unadvertised at houses that nobody knew. Those were the days when people went to the pictures to while away a wet even-ing---or because of the dark. They correspond to the days in which people listen to broadcast programmes because it is too wet to go out, because it is easier than reading, because they hope, without real certainty, that they will hear something good, or because they take a purely technical pleasure in hearing anything coming from a long way away.

In the country, and, to some extent, in the suburbs, exhibitors still work on those lines, But even there, the incursions of the good film-now that people know about it-are being felt. And the West End of London fairly bristles with films worth seeing. The ultimate reasons for the revolution are complex-the awakening of Hollywood to the film art of Hurope being amongst the chief of them; but the immediate cause is the "exclusive run." . BROADCASTING is still in the State in which the movies were two years ago, before the advent of the exclusive run. ‘The ordinary "good" programmes are fairly well classified, for the listener who wants to be selective, into such categories as symphony concerts, light music, stage plays, radio plays, educational talks, and so on, In the same way, the discriminating picture-goer could always know whether the films of the week were Westerns, spectacular, society, slap-stick, or bathing-belle. But the experiments still take their chance in the even flow of broadcasting that goes on all day and every day in the week, The analogy to the "exclusive presentation" is the "feature programme." Just as big films are often bad, so will feature programmes often be bad, but experiments made in them will leaye

their mark. The really intelligent listener who cares critically for the art of broadcasting will get to know the men who are doing good work, When a feature programme is presented by a producer or an author Whose previous programmes have interested ‘him, he will see it announced beforehand, he will note the date ag the theatre-goer notes a first night; he will no more miss it than I would miss the first showing of a new Chaplin film. The Press will report its progress as it- reported progress. in the Cricklewood Studios when "Shooting Stars" was being made, and the critics will review it as "Sunrise" was reviewed. It will be as impossible for anyone who wanted to hear it to miss hearing it as it was for anyone who wanted to see it to miss seeing "Ben Hur." Amongst the millions of listeners (many of them probably switched on to the alternative programme on safe conventional lines), the men responsible for the experiment will find their audience of pioneers. Broadcasting has yet to find its "big minds"-creative artists whose work will bring to the microphone as much originality of technique and imagination as big minds are bringing to the films. It should not take them from the stage. The analogy still holds good. The finest actors and producers of movieland learned their art under movie conditions; they were not transplanted from an older art. Similarly, those who are to build the future of broadcasting technique must be those who have gained experience of their medium, who live, breathe, and think in it only. Such names will mean nothing to the theatre-goer and the film enthusiast. But they will stand for something with the wireless listener. Then the conscious art of broadcasting will have arrived.